The Japanese government has just started a new experiment in the very highly contaminated Iitate-mura in Fukushima Prefecture where the soil contamination exceeds 50,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium, with a host of other nuclides including strontium and neptunium which has since decayed into plutonium.

What’s the experiment? To burn the radioactive soil to reduce the bulk for disposal.

What’s this Japanese obsession with “decontamination” and with “incineration”? Do they think they can somehow “purify” the radioactive fallout by burning? (Hint: this is a rhetorical question. Answer is yes of course.)

The nuclear researchers at the government’s JAEA seem to think burning the soil will revive the soil.

On October 26, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (located in Tokai-mura, Ibaraki Prefecture) showed off its new experiment to see if radioactive cesium could be effectively removed by burning the farm soil in Iitate-mura in Fukushima Prefecture. The experiment is aimed at reviving the farm fields contaminated by the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident.

It is part of the soil remediation technology development as assigned by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. JAEA and National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (in Tsukuba City, Fukushima Prefecture) are jointly conducting the research. The result of the experiment will be known in 2 to 3 weeks.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, if all the farm soil with 5000 becquerels/kg and higher [of radioactive cesium] is removed in Fukushima Prefecture, it would fill 2 to 3 Tokyo Domes, or about 3 million tonnes. How to dispose the removed soil is a big issue.

If the national government’s much-publicized past experiments (like planting sunflowers to absorb radioactive materials in soil) in Iitate-mura are any indication, this one may also fail.

Besides, by strongly encouraging farmers outside the no-entry evacuation zone and the planned evacuation zone (like Iitate-mura) in Fukushima to grow crops as usual, the soil was probably turned deep, mixing radioactive materials with deeper, clean soil. So, removing the top 5 centimeters are likely to do hardly anything other than making people feel good that they have done the “decontamination”.

There are areas and spots with high radiation outside Fukushima Prefecture, but those are none of the concern for the national government, although it has said it may consider the national-level decontamination for the areas with expected annual radiation exposure (external only) of more than 1 millisievert.-

… these are not “dosimeters” but “glass badges” that passively collect radiation information. It won’t help these children or their parents to avoid high-radiation areas and spots, it won’t tell them how much radiation they will have been exposed unless they are sent in to a company to interpret the data.

Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.

Yo: So making comparisons with X-rays and CT scans has no meaning. Because you can breathe in radioactive material.

Hirose: That’s right. When it enters your body, there’s no telling where it will go. The biggest danger is women, especially pregnant women, and little children. Now they’re talking about iodine and cesium, but that’s only part of it, they’re not using the proper detection instruments. What they call monitoring means only measuring the amount of radiation in the air. Their instruments don’t eat. What they measure has no connection with the amount of radioactive material.

Dr. Helen Caldicott (Co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility):

You’ve bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry. They say it’s low-level radiation. That’s absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it’s an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that’s true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia. It’s imperative … that you understand internal emitters and radiation, and it’s not low level to the cells that are exposed. Radiobiology is imperative to understand these days.”

… these are not “dosimeters” but “glass badges” that passively collect radiation information. It won’t help these children or their parents to avoid high-radiation areas and spots, it won’t tell them how much radiation they will have been exposed unless they are sent in to a company to interpret the data.

Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.

Yo: So making comparisons with X-rays and CT scans has no meaning. Because you can breathe in radioactive material.

Hirose: That’s right. When it enters your body, there’s no telling where it will go. The biggest danger is women, especially pregnant women, and little children. Now they’re talking about iodine and cesium, but that’s only part of it, they’re not using the proper detection instruments. What they call monitoring means only measuring the amount of radiation in the air. Their instruments don’t eat. What they measure has no connection with the amount of radioactive material.

Dr. Helen Caldicott (Co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility):

You’ve bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry. They say it’s low-level radiation. That’s absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it’s an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that’s true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia. It’s imperative … that you understand internal emitters and radiation, and it’s not low level to the cells that are exposed. Radiobiology is imperative to understand these days.”